Mortality in eating disorders: a follow-up study of adult eating disorder patients treated in tertiary care, 1995-2010

Abstract

Elevated mortality risk in anorexia nervosa has been established, but less is known about the outcomes of bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. In this follow-up study we determined mortality in adults (N=2450, 95% women) admitted to the eating disorder clinic of the Helsinki University Central Hospital in the period 1995-2010. Most of the patients (80.7%) were outpatients. For each patient four controls were selected and matched for age, sex and place of residence. The matching was taken into account by modelling end-point events using Cox's proportional hazard model. The hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause mortality was 6.51 (95% CI 3.46-12.26) in broad anorexia nervosa (AN), 2.97 (95% CI 1.90-4.65) in broad bulimia nervosa (BN), and 1.77 (95% CI 0.60-5.27) in binge eating disorder (BED). Mortality risk in broad AN was highest during the first years after admission but declined thereafter, while in broad BN the mortality risk started to rise two years after the first admission. The HR for suicide was elevated both in broad AN (HR 5.07; 95% CI 1.37-18.84) and in broad BN (HR 6.07; 95% CI 2.47-14.89). Results show that eating disorders are associated with increased mortality risk even when specialised treatment is available.

Keywords: Anorexia nervosa; Binge-eating disorder; Bulimia nervosa; Outpatient; Specialised eating disorder unit.